Men's Basketball

Brown hoop star Matt Mullery '10 has special connection with Special Olympians

Jan 14, 2010

By Bill Reynolds '68
Journal Sports Writer

PROVIDENCE — He was 9 years old when his brother Christopher
was born with Down syndrome, a chromosome disorder that often
includes developmental difficulties.

Not that he understood the ramifications of it then.

That would come a few years later, when he began to understand how
his brother’s reality affected everything, his family,
himself, everything. By then he knew his brother had challenges
other kids didn’t have, and that was just the way it was, and
always would be.

He also began to see how other people viewed his brother, how they
would look at him and know he was different, how they wanted to
know why.
“I think it made me more sensitive to other people,” he
says.

Matt Mullery went on to be a high school basketball star in
Millstone, N.J. He was All-State and the all-time leading scorer at
his high school. And his brother always went to his games. Just as
he did to Matt’s AAU games, going here, there and everywhere.
Christopher is 13 now and loves sports, both playing them and
traveling with his parents all over the Northeast to attend his
brother’s games.

“Christopher’s really into it,” he says.
“He knows what’s going on, and he wants us to
win.”

Matt Mullery has become one of the best players in the Ivy League,
a 6-foot-8 inside player who can score with his back to the basket
with either hand, no small thing in a college basketball world
where most big guys want to face the basket and shoot jump shots.
Last season, he was first-team All-Ivy, All-Region, and was honored
by the National Association of Basketball Coaches for excellence on
both the court and in the classroom. All that, and he tutors
classmates in math and calculus, too. Brown coach Jesse Agel calls
him the “ultimate student-athlete.”

This year, Matt Mullery is one of 30 finalists in the country for
the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award, which honors a combination of
basketball, academics and community service. Last year, he broke
the Brown record for most blocks in a season, and had 20 points and
20 rebounds in the same game, the first time that had happened at
Brown in 35 years. He already has had a great college career, and
that’s even before Brown’s Ivy League season starts
Friday night at Yale.

But one of his brother’s gifts to him is that he has put
basketball in perspective.

“I play basketball because I love it,” he says.
“But I know it’s just a game. Being around Christopher
has taught me that.”

His brother also has taught him the importance of family, the
importance of things that endure, even on those nights when your
shot doesn’t go in, and in those seasons that don’t
always end up the way you want them to. His brother also is
Matt’s only sibling, so he knows that he always is going to
be the one to watch over him, make sure he’s all right.

“I love my brother more than anything,” he says.
“I don’t see it as a burden at all.”

Matt Mullery also has come to know that he shares a certain bond
with people with special needs and their families, too, for they
walk the same terrain.

It is this awareness that caused him to be a key part in bringing
in roughly 100 Special Olympians to Brown’s Pizzitola Gym
Wednesday night for a basketball clinic. A year ago, the Brown
basketball team had done a similar thing on a smaller scale when
Agel had wanted to do something for the community. Last fall,
Mullery got in touch with Special Olympics and became the liaison
between that organization and Brown. He wanted to run another
clinic and wanted to do it bigger.

“Last year was such a success,” he says. “We were
thrilled with it, and they were, too. And when you do something
like this you realize how much those kids like it. They love
sports, and they love being around athletes. They’re so
thrilled to be here, so enthusiastic to be a part of it. It’s
a great thing to be around. It’s a great thing to watch. And
I want to do anything to bring that level of fun for
anyone.”

He paused for a beat, and when he starts to talk again his words
come out slowly and with resolve.

“There are certain things that define you,” he
continues, “whether you realize it or not. They shape
you.”

There’s no question Mullery has been shaped by his
brother’s reality. He says it made him mature quicker, made
him realize that life can sneak up on you once in a while.

It’s a lesson he’s learned from basketball, too, one
that was reinforced a week ago when he won a game against Wagner on
a last-second drive, then sprained his ankle in the opening minutes
against Army and hasn’t played since. Life has a way of
throwing you curveballs, and it’s what you do with those
curveballs that define you.

The lessons he carries with him in the last two months of his
college career.

The lessons he’s learned from his brother, even if his
brother may not always be aware of them.

“Basketball is my passion,” says Matt Mullery,
“and I love playing. But I’m not going to have
basketball forever. But I’ll always have my
brother.”